S.P.I.C.Y Spiralia¿Está Estados Unidos en una encrucijada? puede que más que en otras ocasiones, lo cual, si bien es cierto, tiene importantes implicaciones para el resto del mundo. Mientras los presidentes de izquierdas (o al menos declarados como tales) ganan terreno en América Latina y en ellos habita la idea de unión y alianza para reconstituir una suerte de identidad común a los americanos (estos de todo el continente), en Estados Unidos las cosas están poniéndose más y más crudas.
Bien, Michael Moore pide votar por Obama y declara que lo hace a sabiendas ded que no es el mejor, pero que lleva consigo lo que llama "el movimiento Obama" que, en el fondo, parece identificarse con una suerte de "chiripero" a la gringa, aquello que llevó en nuestro país a Caldera a un segundo periódo al conseguir capitalizar los distintos descontentos contra el modo perverso que el sistema social de Estados Unidos está mostrando en los últimos tiempos.
Vía Michael Moore
Monday, April 21st, 2008
My Vote's for Obama (if I could vote) ...by Michael Moore
Friends,
I don't get to vote for President this primary season. I live in Michigan. The party leaders (both here and in D.C.) couldn't get their act together, and thus our votes will not be counted.
So, if you live in Pennsylvania, can you do me a favor? Will you please cast my vote -- and yours -- on Tuesday for Senator Barack Obama?
I haven't spoken publicly 'til now as to who I would vote for, primarily for two reasons: 1) Who cares?; and 2) I (and most people I know) don't give a rat's ass whose name is on the ballot in November, as long as there's a picture of JFK and FDR riding a donkey at the top of the ballot, and the word "Democratic" next to the candidate's name.
Seriously, I know so many people who don't care if the name under the Big "D" is Dancer, Prancer, Clinton or Blitzen. It can be Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Barry Obama or the Dalai Lama.
Well, that sounded good last year, but over the past two months, the actions and words of Hillary Clinton have gone from being merely disappointing to downright disgusting. I guess the debate last week was the final straw. I've watched Senator Clinton and her husband play this game of appealing to the worst side of white people, but last Wednesday, when she hurled the name "Farrakhan" out of nowhere, well that's when the silly season came to an early end for me. She said the "F" word to scare white people, pure and simple. Of course, Obama has no connection to Farrakhan. But, according to Senator Clinton, Obama's pastor does -- AND the "church bulletin" once included a Los Angeles Times op-ed from some guy with Hamas! No, not the church bulletin!
This sleazy attempt to smear Obama was brilliantly explained the following night by Stephen Colbert. He pointed out that if Obama is supported by Ted Kennedy, who is Catholic, and the Catholic Church is led by a Pope who was in the Hitler Youth, that can mean only one thing: OBAMA LOVES HITLER!
Yes, Senator Clinton, that's how you sounded. Like you were nuts. Like you were a bigot stoking the fires of stupidity. How sad that I would ever have to write those words about you. You have devoted your life to good causes and good deeds. And now to throw it all away for an office you can't win unless you smear the black man so much that the superdelegates cry "Uncle (Tom)" and give it all to you.
But that can't happen. You cast your die when you voted to start this bloody war. When you did that you were like Moses who lost it for a moment and, because of that, was prohibited from entering the Promised Land.
How sad for a country that wanted to see the first woman elected to the White House. That day will come -- but it won't be you. We'll have to wait for the current Democratic governor of Kansas to run in 2016 (you read it here first!).
There are those who say Obama isn't ready, or he's voted wrong on this or that. But that's looking at the trees and not the forest. What we are witnessing is not just a candidate but a profound, massive public movement for change. My endorsement is more for Obama The Movement than it is for Obama the candidate.
That is not to take anything away from this exceptional man. But what's going on is bigger than him at this point, and that's a good thing for the country. Because, when he wins in November, that Obama Movement is going to have to stay alert and active. Corporate America is not going to give up their hold on our government just because we say so. President Obama is going to need a nation of millions to stand behind him.
I know some of you will say, 'Mike, what have the Democrats done to deserve our vote?' That's a damn good question. In November of '06, the country loudly sent a message that we wanted the war to end. Yet the Democrats have done nothing. So why should we be so eager to line up happily behind them?
I'll tell you why. Because I can't stand one more friggin' minute of this administration and the permanent, irreversible damage it has done to our people and to this world. I'm almost at the point where I don't care if the Democrats don't have a backbone or a kneebone or a thought in their dizzy little heads. Just as long as their name ain't "Bush" and the word "Republican" is not beside theirs on the ballot, then that's good enough for me.
I, like the majority of Americans, have been pummeled senseless for 8 long years. That's why I will join millions of citizens and stagger into the voting booth come November, like a boxer in the 12th round, all bloodied and bruised with one eye swollen shut, looking for the only thing that matters -- that big "D" on the ballot.
Don't get me wrong. I lost my rose-colored glasses a long time ago.
It's foolish to see the Democrats as anything but a nicer version of a party that exists to do the bidding of the corporate elite in this country. Any endorsement of a Democrat must be done with this acknowledgement and a hope that one day we will have a party that'll represent the people first, and laws that allow that party an equal voice.
Finally, I want to say a word about the basic decency I have seen in Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton continues to throw the Rev. Wright up in his face as part of her mission to keep stoking the fears of White America. Every time she does this I shout at the TV, "Say it, Obama! Say that when she and her husband were having marital difficulties regarding Monica Lewinsky, who did she and Bill bring to the White House for 'spiritual counseling?' THE REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT!"
But no, Obama won't throw that at her. It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be decent. She's been through enough hurt. And so he remains silent and takes the mud she throws in his face.
That's why the crowds who come to see him are so large. That's why he'll take us down a more decent path. That's why I would vote for him if Michigan were allowed to have an election.
But the question I keep hearing is... 'can he win? Can he win in November?' In the distance we hear the siren of the death train called the Straight Talk Express. We know it's possible to hear the words "President McCain" on January 20th. We know there are still many Americans who will never vote for a black man. Hillary knows it, too. She's counting on it.
Pennsylvania, the state that gave birth to this great country, has a chance to set things right. It has not had a moment to shine like this since 1787 when our Constitution was written there. In that Constitution, they wrote that a black man or woman was only "three fifths" human. On Tuesday, the good people of Pennsylvania have a chance for redemption.
Yours,
Michael Moore
MichaelMoore.com
MMFlint@aol.com
¿Alguien recuerda el reciente escándalo por la muerte de seis neonatos (al menos dos de ellos no-natos) en la Maternidad Concepción Palacios en Caracas?
Bien, este cuento es, casi idéntico. H. Clinton se hizo eco de una historia "que le contaron" y la ajustó a su gusto, al parecer todo ello para reforzar su posición acerca de los servicios sanitarios en los Estados Unidos.
La historia completa desde New York Post, en inglés, vía ZFacts.
Agur!
Ohio Hospital Contests a Story Clinton Tells
By DEBORAH SONTAG
Published: April 5, 2008
Over the last five weeks, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has featured in her campaign stump speeches the story of a health care horror: an uninsured pregnant woman who lost her baby and died herself after being denied care by an Ohio hospital because she could not come up with a $100 fee.
The woman, Trina Bachtel, did die last August, two weeks after her baby boy was stillborn at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio. But hospital administrators said Friday that Ms. Bachtel was under the care of an obstetrics practice affiliated with the hospital, that she was never refused treatment and that she was, in fact, insured.
“We implore the Clinton campaign to immediately desist from repeating this story,” said Rick Castrop, chief executive officer of the O’Bleness Health System.
Linda M. Weiss, a spokeswoman for the not-for-profit hospital, said the Clinton campaign had never contacted the hospital to check the accuracy of the story, which Mrs. Clinton had first heard from a Meigs County, Ohio, sheriff’s deputy in late February.
A Clinton spokesman, Mo Elleithee, said candidates would frequently retell stories relayed to them, vetting them when possible. “In this case, we did try but were not able to fully vet it,” Mr. Elleithee said. “If the hospital claims it did not happen that way, we respect that.”
The sheriff’s deputy, Bryan Holman, had played host to Mrs. Clinton in his home before the Ohio primary. Deputy Holman said in a telephone interview that a conversation about health care led him to relate the story of Ms. Bachtel. He never mentioned the name of the hospital that supposedly turned her away because he did not know it, he said.
Deputy Holman knew Ms. Bachtel’s story only secondhand, having learned it from close relatives of the woman. Ms. Bachtel’s relatives did not return phone calls Friday.
As Deputy Holman understood it, Ms. Bachtel had died of complications from a stillbirth after being turned away by a local hospital for her failure to pay $100 upfront.
“I mentioned this story to Senator Clinton, and she apparently took to it and liked it,” Deputy Holman said, “and one of her aides said she’d be using it at some rallies.”
Indeed, saying that the story haunted her, Mrs. Clinton repeatedly offered it as a dire example of a broken health care system. At one March rally in Wyoming, for instance, she referred to Ms. Bachtel, a 35-year-old who managed a Pizza Hut, as a young, uninsured minimum-wage worker, saying, “It hurts me that in our country, as rich and good of a country as we are, this young woman and her baby died because she couldn’t come up with $100 to see the doctor.”
Mrs. Clinton does not name Ms. Bachtel or the hospital in her speeches. As she tells it, the woman was turned away twice by a local hospital when she was experiencing difficulty with her pregnancy. “The hospital said, ‘Well, you don’t have insurance.’ She said, ‘No, I don’t.’ They said, ‘Well, we can’t see you until you give $100.’ She said, ‘Where am I going to get $100?’
“The next time she came back to the hospital, she came in an ambulance,” Mrs. Clinton continued. “She was in distress. The doctors and the nurses worked on her and couldn’t save the baby.”
Since Ms. Bachtel’s baby died at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital, the story implicitly and inaccurately accuses that hospital of turning her away, said Ms. Weiss, the spokeswoman for O’Bleness Memorial said. Instead, the O’Bleness health care system treated her, both at the hospital and at the affiliated River Rose Obstetrics and Gynecology practice, Ms. Weiss said.
The hospital would not provide details about the woman’s case, citing privacy concerns; she died two weeks after the stillbirth at a medical center in Columbus.
“We reviewed the medical and patient account records of this patient,” said Mr. Castrop, the health system’s chief executive. Any implication that the system was “involved in denying care is definitely not true.”
Although Mrs. Clinton has told the story repeatedly, it first came to the attention of the hospital after The Washington Post cited it as a staple of her stump speeches on Thursday. That brought it to the attention of The Daily Sentinel in Pomeroy, Ohio, which published an article on Friday.
Neither paper named the hospital or challenged Mrs. Clinton’s account.
(si no lo digo se me cae la lengua!!!)
El avance hacia la resolución del conflicto de SIDOR, se concretó recientemente con la decisión del Gobierno Nacional de intervenir directamente en el mismo a través de la delegación en el Vicepresidente de la República de la potestad para fijar, de un modo claro, cuál era la posición del Estado.
Bien, para hacer el cuento corto, el Estado decidió posicionarse como accionista mayoritario de la compañía, invirtiendo las proporciones en las acciones de la empresa en algo que los medios, y hasta gente del gobierno reseñó como una "nacionalización".
Bien apuntó Vladimir Acosta en su programa del lunes 14 que lo que ocurrió allí no fue una nacionalización como tal, sino esto que he dicho ahora: un cambio de dueño en el porcentaje mayoritario de las acciones. Fundamentalmente porque no se pide a Termium que entregue todas sus acciones, sino que otorgue mayoría al Estado Venezolano.
Bien, pero no es esto a lo que voy a referirme, sino a la actuación del Ministerio del Trabajo.
En conversaciones con Mapologo, posteriores a la decisión del Gobierno de tomar el control de la mayoría accionaria de la compañía, le comentaba mi hipótesis sobre que no debía tardar en llegar una decisión, también gubernamental, de remoción del Ministro del Trabajo, ahora saliente, José Ramón Rivero, pues si algo había quedado en evidencia es que su actuación, a lo largo no sólo del conflicto con SIDOR por cierto, no era cónsona con el discurso gubernamental. La remoción del Ministro, decía yo, mostraría un grado de madurez política, ciertamente nada reprochable y, en buena medida de data muy reciente en nuestro país.
A todas luces quedaba claro que los intereses defendidos desde el Ministerio del Poder Popular para el Trabajo y la Seguridad Social, en términos generales, no son aquellos que podríamos asociar con los de los trabajadores. También es cierto que el movimiento ocurrido en SIDOR ha dado una bocanada de aire a aquello que podríamos creer puede ser catalogado como un movimiento clasista obrero incipiente en nuestro país, bocanada que viene, desde mucho tiempo atrás insuflada también por movimientos como los que han enfrentado a SINCREBA en Mérida, y que merece ser mantenida.
Bien, esa decisión de remoción llegó hoy, pero no llegó sola, llegó de la mano de Roberto Hernández, quien, a mi juicio, es en el panorama actual del país, uno de los pocos que puede meter su mano en la construcción de un verdadero movimiento clasista obrero venezolano.
Ojo, el camino no es fácil, ni corto y seguro tampoco grato. Sobre todo está lleno de peligros y peros (un movimiento corporativista de Estado es uno de ellos). Pero a ratos, como este en el que escribo ahora, siento un fresquito divino. Hay cosas que se ven, y comienzan a aprenderse cosas también.
(y luego, cuando alguien viene y defiende un proyecto para hacer del petróleo algo del proyecto común de Suramérica, resulta que ya no queremos hacerlo!!!)
Hace unos días me dediqué a la corrección (algo intensiva) de ensayos de estudiantes de 8avo y 9eno semestre (en su mayoría) de varias carreras de la Facultad de Humanidades de la Universidad de Los Andes, en ocasión de un taller sobre Participación Ciudadana ofrecido en el marco del proceso de insducción de esos estudiantes al Servicio Social Comunitario.
Dado que el taller es aprobatorio, los ensayos no eran un requisito trivial, y de cada alumno se esperaba que tomase un proyecto de servicio social comunitario (de preferencia aquél en el que se involucraría), explicase brevemente su contenido y luego explorara los modos de participación ciudadana, los mecanismos, sus modalidades y los valores que esta podría adquirir en el marco de dicho proyecto. Es decir que pusieran a andar lo que, en términos de conceptos, se había mostrado a lo largo de la sesión del taller.
Cuanto allí se ha visto, a lo largo de la corrección de dichos ensayos, ha sido, sencillamente... triste. Abundaron trabajos que eran copias del planteamiento de los proyectos de Servicio Social Comunitario, e incluso hubo alguien que envió su ensayo, de un párrafo, en el cuerpo del correo electrónico hablando de sus expectativas en términos cuando menos, vagos e inentendibles ... sin duda, la perla se la llevó el casi 10% de los trabajos corregidos que resultaron copias textuales COMPLETAS de textos descargados de internet, y el cercano al 30% que eran trabajos PARCIALMENTE copiados de internet. Los errores ortográficos, en realidad, no fueron la norma (quizás por el alto contenido de contenidos descargados de la Red), aunque se encontraron cosas curiosas, como utilizar el término "críptico informativo" en lugar de "tríptico informativo".
Había dicho que los textos copiados de internet no tenían que ver con el contenido del taller? Sin cita o análisis alguno de nada de lo mostrado?.
Lo más llamativo es el modo en que algunos estudiantes llegan a pensar que, en realidad "no pasa nada" porque obren así. Alguien entregó su ensayo en un formato distinto al solicitado. Finalmente pude recuperar el formato en que lo había enviado y su ensayo fue leído, para darme cuenta de que era un informe de otro proyecto más bajado de internet, sin alterar comas o puntos. Dado que había avisado a la persona que reenviara su archivo, recibí días después otro documento, en teoría una copia de su ensayo inicial, esta vez en el formato requerido. Bien, si mi sorpresa fue de infarto al ver que se trataba, de nuevo, de un trabajo descargado de internet, realmente llegó a ser deprimente cuando al pedir explicación sobre por qué enviar dos documentos distintos, recibí por respuesta "profesora, es que volví a hacer el ensayo porque Ud. no lo pudo leer" ...
Tan sólo pude enviarle como respuesta a esta persona, el enlace que adjunté arriba y que le había "ayudado" a hacer nuevamente su trabajo.
Descubrir que estudiantes que han transitado tanto en una carrera universitaria aún no tengan conciencia de la necesidad de expresar sus propias ideas, o, quizás, sin saber cóm hacerlo, es tal vez casi tan triste como ver que esos estudiantes provienen, en su mayoría, de carreras universitarias cuya orientación principal es la formación de otros. Me aterra el futuro de estas personas .. y de la sociedad que, desde sus trincheras, construirán, sin saberlo ...
Carlos Martínez vía REBELION
Estos y otros más son los ejemplos que nos muestra el sitio http://www.anti-cnn.com/, los cuales sólo suponen una ínfima parte de la adulteración informativa en el caso del Tibet. China no es un ejemplo precisamente de país socialista pero toda esta campaña orquestada contra ese Estado y los Juegos Olimpicos no se debe a la preocupación por los derechos humanos de los tibetanos. De otro modo, esos mismos medios habrían llamado también al boicot contra los recientes JJOO celebrados en EE.UU., cuyo gobierno mantiene el gulag de Guantánamo y la pena de muerte para menores y enfermos mentales. Lo que ha ocurrido en el Tibet tiene más que ver con el rechazo al capitalismo -personalizado en empresas y comerciantes chinos, algo que ha ocurrido incluso en España- que con el derecho a la autodeterminación, un lujo que no puede permitirse los tibetanos,so pena de volver al feudalismo teocratico.
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macarlos@gmail.com
http://www.carlosmartinez.info